Army Recruiters Seek ready, Willing, Able
By RICHARD LARDNER rlardner@tampatrib.com
Published: Sep 20, 2004
TAMPA - ``Keep your hands at your sides,'' barked Army Sgt. 1st Class John Smith. ``You're not at a disco. There's no need to be swinging 'em.''
On a sweltering Wednesday evening at Brandon High School, Smith is teaching a dozen recruits the finer points of ``left face,'' a standard military command.
As with their one-mile run just a few minutes before, several of these prospective soldiers are having a tough time with the drill.
Michael Madill, 19, is sweating hard. A few months ago, he weighed 347 pounds, too heavy to join the Army. By consuming just 400 calories a day and exercising regularly, he has lost about 80 pounds. He expects to leave for boot camp in October.
``It's been hell,'' said Madill, a Brandon High graduate who plans to be a satellite technician.
Once a week, Smith and his colleagues from the Army recruiting station on Brandon Boulevard gather their recruits at the high school's track to prepare them for the rigors of basic training and the concepts of military culture.
By design, the sessions are low-impact. Smith is blunt but encouraging. These young men and women need to know that their lives are about to change dramatically, but he doesn't want to scare them. A hard-nosed drill sergeant is waiting at a base to do that.
``My attitude is to hug 'em and love 'em until they leave,'' said Smith, who has signed up close to 80 people during his 2 1/2 years as a recruiter.
While the Army is engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, Smith is in a very different battle. The Army is the largest of the military branches, with more than 700,000 active-duty and Army Reserve troops. It's also under the most stress and continually in need of fresh faces.
This is not an easy fight. The Army is competing for America's youths against the other armed services - including the Army National Guard, which maintains its own recruiting system - as well as with colleges, businesses and government employers.
There also is the heightened possibility that a newly minted soldier will be sent to war, a prospect that steers plenty of candidates away.
So Smith and the other 30 Army recruiters in Hillsborough County have to be creative and hands-on. The risks of a military career are not undersold, they insist, but neither are the benefits.
``Recruiting has been hard since they started 30 years ago with an all-volunteer force,'' said Capt. William Padjune, who commands all the recruiters in Hillsborough. ``You're out there trying to find people who are willing, ready and qualified to join the military. It just takes a lot of work to get that done.''
County Backs Recruiting
Recruiting is big business for the Army.
By the end of this month, it expects to have met a goal of bringing in more than 98,000 active-duty and Army Reserve soldiers in fiscal year 2004, according to the Army Recruiting Command at Fort Knox, Ky.
Those results don't come cheaply. Each recruit costs taxpayers $15,000 to process, and roughly one in 10 won't make it through basic training.
Overall, the Army spends more than $460 million a year on recruiting and advertising. In addition to the glossy brochures and television spots promoting the ``Army of One,'' the service sponsors sporting events popular with the demographic it is trying to recruit - auto racing, football, basketball and rodeo.
``It's a sales organization,'' Padjune said.
The Hillsborough County school district has been an active supporter for a long time. There was little local effect when the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act required public high schools nationwide to provide recruiters with names, addresses and phone numbers of juniors and seniors because Hillsborough has been supplying such lists for 20 years.
The county charges the military $61 for an annual directory.
Parents who don't want their children contacted can have names removed from the list by filling out a form in their children's student handbooks. Critics say many people aren't aware they can ``opt out'' until after the information has been released.
``It's very overwhelming for parents when they have back- to-school night and they have 15 different waivers and forms to fill out,'' said Mary Kusler, a senior legislative specialist with the American Association of School Administrators in Washington. ``It's very easy for this one to get lost in the mix.''
Padjune said his recruiters won't push it if their calls are unwanted.
``We attempt to contact everybody on the lists just to see what their interest is,'' he said. ``But we respect people's privacy.''
On any given day, armed forces recruiters can be found at Hillsborough's 23 public high schools, 17 of which have Junior ROTC programs.
Off campus, recruiters make regular stops at malls, movie theaters and fast-food restaurants, anywhere teenagers and young adults meet. These tactics aren't new, but they worry some parents who say children aren't getting the full picture.
Karen Putney's two sons graduated from public high schools in Tampa and were reminded of military benefits frequently by recruiters who said little about the possibility of combat, she recalls.
Neither son joined; the Putneys are Quaker and opposed to war.
``It has to be an informed choice,'' she said. ``There needs to be much more information about the grimmer details of the job.''
Recruits Crave Stability
If there's a common thread in why recruits sign up, it tends to be the belief that the military offers stability and an opportunity to learn job skills.
Although the Army promotes careers in its elite special forces, few recruits have the physical and mental tools needed to join these tip-of-the-spear units.
According to the Army Recruiting Command, just 28 percent of Florida's recent recruits have been placed in ``combat arms'' positions, which include the armor, infantry and artillery branches. The rest are in support jobs such as communications, transportation and military police.
Newly enlisted soldiers - E- 1s in military parlance - earn about $1,200 a month in basic pay. If they live on base, their meals and rent are covered. An E-1 who chooses off-base housing receives, on average, an extra $886 for housing and food every month, according to the Defense Department.
A soldier who contributes $100 a month during the first year of service is eligible for help with college tuition or in paying off existing school loans. Bonuses also are available for high school graduates who have completed college courses.
Recruiters also point out medical and dental care is available ``at little or cost.''
Martin Strickrodt, 33, was a Brandon electrician working toward a bachelor's degree at the University of South Florida. Married, with a year-old son and $28,000 in student loans, he was in over his head.
``It was an outrageous challenge,'' he said.
So Strickrodt joined the Army. Last month he reported to Fort Jackson, S.C., for nine weeks of basic training before he heads to Fort Eustis, Va., to learn how to be a Black Hawk helicopter mechanic.
Patriotism as well as financial freedom were his motivators, Strickrodt says, and he's not worried about going to war in a role that should keep him behind the front lines.
Nicole Ritchey, 18, a recent graduate of East Bay High School in Gibsonton, joined the Army to become a medic.
In her case, military service is a family tradition, and she is drawn to the soldier's lifestyle as well as the opportunity to make a difference. Like Strickrodt, she will do her basic training at Fort Jackson.
Adam Cason says he was motivated by the Sept. 11 attacks when he was 15, but he was too young and out of shape.
Now 18, the Armwood High School graduate has shed more than 130 pounds over two years, and left this month for Fort Sill, Okla., where he will learn to operate an Avenger air defense system.
``I'd be doing this even if there wasn't a paycheck,'' he said.
`No Hard And Fast Goal'
The stereotypical image of an Army recruiter is a soldier in a cramped office at a strip mall waiting for candidates to walk through the door.
Such a recruiter wouldn't last long. Recruiting is about hustling, and the Army rewards the best with choice assignments and accelerated promotions.
Recruiters typically serve a three-year tour and receive an extra $450 a month in special duty pay as well as a $75 monthly allowance for expenses. The Army also buys each recruiter's dress-blue uniform, which costs more than $300.
Most recruiters are chosen because their personalities and career experiences match the image the Army wants to sell.
Smith has been stationed in Germany and Korea. He keeps a photo album near his desk at the Brandon station to show candidates the far-flung places he has seen.
Padjune says there is no set number of soldiers his recruiters must bring in, although he estimates his eight stations in Hillsborough bring in 40 a month.
`There's no hard and fast goal,'' he said. ``We just want to do an honest day's work.''
Still, recruiters must produce, or they're replaced. After a nine-month trial period, weak performers are sent back to their old jobs or processed out of the Army.
Sgt. 1st Class James Hawkins has been an Army recruiter for 14 years. On the back wall of his station in Town 'N Country is a large map pinpointing the public high schools in his area: Leto, Jefferson, Gaither and Blake.
The map also lists large business competitors in the area: Tampa International Airport, Tropical Sportswear International and Nutmeg Mills.
Hawkins says the five recruiters he supervises each make as many as 100 phone calls a day. Most potential soldiers contacted by phone or in person don't have automatic interest, so the recruiters plant the idea and hope it grows. Hawkins calls this ``silent recruiting.''
Like Smith, Hawkins conducts weekly fitness sessions for recruits.
``We have to get involved,'' he said. ``Sometimes these kids can't do it on their own.''
`They Know Where To Look'
Two private high schools also are on Hawkins' map: Jesuit and The Cambridge School. His access to them is limited, though.
John Crumbley, an assistant principal at Jesuit, says his students plan for college. The campus welcomes representatives from the service academies, including West Point, but not recruiters looking for enlistees.
``They want to come in all day with a truckload of pamphlets, and that's not happening here,'' Crumbley said.
This underscores what some say is most wrong with the recruiting system. Recruiters look for candidates at public schools, particularly in poorer neighborhoods, where seniors are less likely to go to college and more uncertain about their futures, says Kevin Ramirez of the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors in Philadelphia.
``Recruiting is a numbers game,'' said Ramirez, coordinator of the organization's Military Out Of Our Schools program. ``They have information going back five, 10 years on the percentage of students from a school that enlists. They know where to look for recruits.''
It's clear that the frequency of recruiter visits can vary by school.
At Plant High School in south Tampa, for example, 97 percent of graduating seniors go on to college, says Principal Eric Bergholm. Military recruiters are welcome at Plant, he says, but they visit the campus only a few times a month.
At Blake High School in central Tampa, 60 percent of graduates are college-bound. Military recruiters are on campus as often as three times a week, says Principal Jacqueline Haynes.
Public schools appear sure to remain a significant source for recruits. Still, enlistees can come from anywhere.
In February, Benjamin Fuentes was out of a job and out of options. Living in his car in New Jersey, he headed south to Valrico, where his parents live. In March, he found work but was laid off a few months later.
After talking with his brother on leave from duty in Iraq, Fuentes, 21, decided reluctantly to enlist.
``Truthfully, I'm not all for the Army. That's not my lifestyle,'' he said, preparing to leave this month for basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. But ``the Army's going to help me. It won't fire me. It won't lay me off. It'll give me a place to stay.''
Reporter Richard Lardner can be reached at (813) 259- 7966.
SCHOOL RULES
Military recruiters have regular access to Hillsborough County public high schools, but the school district has guidelines they must follow, including:
* Visits should be at a regularly scheduled place, time and day of the week.
* Recruiters should not interview students who have not followed the proper procedure for a meeting.
* Honest, up-to-date information should be conveyed to all students. Recruiters should conduct themselves so students do not feel pressured.
* Recruiters should offer military information to all students who request it, regardless of whether the student appears to be a good candidate.
* If a student states he or she has decided definitely against a military career, the recruiter should not request to see the student again on school time.
Source: Hillsborough school district